Playing

Maybe it is time to purchase an XBOX. The MS game console really does seem the most advanced on the market now. Can someone over 40 buy one for themselves? An Xbox would plug right into my 5.1 HTS and they've certainly attained a certain 'coolness' on TV sitcoms. (Yet, TiVo has been displayed in a few of the shows I saw this week and most of my friends don't know what that is. What synergy --- TV promoting a way to watch more TV!)

I guess you might say that I've had an interest in computer games since the classics. Most of the games with which I'm familiar would be from a bygone era. Thankfully this apartment is very small or I'd own a $US 800.00 Asteroids cabinet. (They do ship to the USA though, Bret!)

Houseboat Heaven

Are you stuck for vacation planning? Wouldn't it be fun to get twenty of your friends together for a week? Some houseboats can sleep up to this many people. During last week's trip, we stayed in Sicamous which is right on the Trans-Canada highway, west of Revelstoke. There are a number of companies that make houseboats and offer vacations on the Shuswap Lakes. With an estimated 1000 kilometers of shoreline on just one lake, everybody would be able to find a place to anchor and share the onboard spa!

Online Travel Bargains

Buying airline tickets nowadays is like playing the horses. The price that came up this morning is double what I saw last night. I never know when to actually book.

[Outdated Link]

Vancouver to San Francisco packages

I'm a Fan

The nights are cool but during the day it sure seems as if ...
... summer's still here!

It's Surely Not a Notebook

Yesterday when home, tried to switch on the computer and ... nothing happened. It had run 24/7 for two and a half weeks. I had to cart the beast to my computer shop and the technician replaced the power supply for free.

When I got home the elevators were not working. I'd never seen that in 5 years of living in this building! I carried the case up 10+2 floors and was sweaty enough to take a shower as soon as I got in!

Trip Completed

Shot back 3A to the Crow Highway through Princeton and past Manning Provincial Park. Got to New Westminster at 3:00 pm. The trip was about 1230 km (760 miles).

Four

Travelled down the Okanagan Valley via 97B. Slept in Penticton.

Good Ole' Route 1

Followed Route 1 rather than paying the toll to Kamloops. That route is more interesting and we enjoyed watching the forest turn to semi-desert. Slept in Sicamous. (The hamster ran on its wheel though.)

Road Trip!

It's past time for a short road trip. Jay has a few days off this week too, so we'll go away for a bit. We've not spent very much time in the Thompson-Okanagan region. It's around 500 km (310 miles) to Salmon Arm.

New Westminster Weather

I was searching for the latitude and longitude of New Westminster for GeoURL. My apartment is approximately 49.211 N and 122.91 W. During the search the following interesting weather page showed up. It must be a guy who lives uptown with a weather station as a hobby. How great to be able to put the -- New Westminster Weather -- stats online!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe ...

Rather than taking pictures of it, I should be swimming in it. The pool in our building is often empty and my doctor would be very pleased if I were to do a bit more activity.

I had fogotten that the 55th Annual Emmy Awards were tonight! On the west coast they start at 5:00 and that's good.

The Way It Should Be

Here's a song because I've been experimenting with Windows Media Encoder. I saved the link below in .wma format. Unlike the original, I've tried to encode this song so that it can be played over various connection speeds. If you have enough bandwidth it should play at 128K. Even if you have a modem connection on the other side of the globe, you should be able to hear something.

Bruce Hornsby - The Way It Is [LINK REMOVED]

If you have extra time, could you please give this a try? Maybe the encoding only works from an enabled server. I'd especially like to hear back from someone with a less than optimal connection. You can fill out the web form at the right or write a comment to the email address found there.

Thank you.

Royal City Star - Floating Casino

From a balcony picture earlier in the month (September 8th), one could see the New Westminster Quay. Parked near the market is a casino riverboat which seldom leaves the dock nowadays.

Thinking: Practice Makes Perfect

I always arrange life so that I have a very light teaching schedule. For example, I won't go back to teach a class until November. People occasionally ask what I do with my extra time. Umm ... I guess I think. If one has the opportunity to think then there's no such thing as extra time. This leads me to a personal view I've got to share.

Cell phones are great technology but I often see people who can't seem to find the off switch. On the SkyTrain or bus, they waste precious minutes of their lives involved in meaningless conversations. They spend half an hour asking where the other person is and about other verbal debris. These people are sitting beside me but are 'virtually' in some unknown space. I wish they could shut off the phone, look out the window and just think a little!

All in a Day's Work

Jay went to work today and is signing up for permanent part-time with benefits at Covenant House Vancouver. It looks like he'll have to work shifts every other weekend. His job at the YMCA might be curtailed in the future as they construct a new building without hotel space.

Fall Chill

Last night was cool and damp. The gas fireplace was switched on for the first time this season. I was looking for an excuse to scan old photos, so the lack of heat is a good intro for the picture below!


It was taken in the early 80's. I worked in Kuwait at the time and during spring break, four of us chose to take a road trip through Jordan and Syria. The gals couldn't drive through Saudi as non-family members and thusly flew to meet us in Jordan. On the evening of this picture, we were stranded in a snow storm in the mountains of Jordan. I believe we were near Al-Karak. A local family from a small village offered us food, hospitality, and warmth. Trevor Clark (right) and yours truly (middle) were wearing the head-gear for the fun of photo taking.

The hour of light are getting much shorter. This is especially noticeable on a grey day. The kitchen lights need to be on at quarter to six!

To You.

Happy Birthday, dad!

A Note

Here's a note received from Lori Preston. How very thoughful and nice of her to send it. Some people may not be able to answer an email, but Lori can go a step farther ...

Dennis,
I loved seeing your picture of you & sandy, it brought back school memories. Things seemed to be wonderful in your life, I'm so glad to hear that. You deserve it, you've brought many smiles to my face throughout the years. We see our school year friends so seldom and yet the memories of good times spent together are so vivid. Wishing you well.
Lori

Put a Cork in It

In British Columbia, there are u-brew wine shops. They are businesses where customers pay a fee to make wine on their premises. Legally, before the 30-bottle batch gets started, the kits contain food, and are therefore, untaxed. The customer adds the yeast to the kit and then must return in four to six weeks for bottling. The interim filtering and aging are completed by the shop. There are two main benefits: the wine is a natural product without chemicals, and the cost is around US$2 a bottle!

(Quote from Nature.com) Red wine blocks a cellular compound thought to be a key factor in heart disease, a new study finds, bolstering claims that red wine carries more health benefits than other alcoholic beverages. The finding may help explain why the French, who often drink red wine with meals, appear to have a lower risk of heart disease than people in Britain despite eating a similar amount of saturated fat - a phenomenon known as the 'French paradox'.

Storm Clouds

It's cold and gray today. Wasn't it just last week we all feared running out of water and were busy complaining about the heat?

Jay's Arriving at YVR

I will go to pick up Jay at the airport at about noon today. I've been able to follow the entire journey on Cathay Pacific Airways and The World Clock - Time Zones. He phoned from Hong Kong too. He had gone home to visit his seriously sick mother. Although she will not recover, her body keeps holding on to life. It must have been a real struggle to have witnessed this for the past month. My prayers go out to the whole family during these trying times.

My Doggie

This week's picture of H3, got me to thinking about past pets. This picture must've been taken about 38 years ago. The collie was named Sandy due to her color. I don't really even remember her as a small puppy. If there's enough space and time for attention, every kid should have a dog!

Classical Gas

I was driving down from the mall yesterday and noticed how nearly all modern cars and trucks have hidden gas caps. All the little doors on the side of the cars suddenly looked strange to me. Are we supposed to think the vehicles don't need to carry around a cache of fossil fuel? Maybe designers just think it's easier not to have to deal with a gas cap. (Why?). As a kid for a few summers I pumped gas at Osborne's Garage. Those were the days before self-serve islands and I think gas was less than 50 cents a gallon. Designers of big old tanks such as Buick, Oldsmobile, and even Plymouth used to hide the caps behind rear license plates. At the end of each summer I always had a collection of them!

This is Elizabeth and Chris.


They are my niece and nephew.

Other People Blog Too?

Should you be interested in 'blog surfing' then, Weblogs.Com: Recently Changed Weblogs has an ever-changing list of thousands.

Say, "Cheese!"

Below is a picture of H3 that I took last night. He follows in the grand tradition of the previous pets: Hamster1 and Hamster2. They may have looked similar but each has had a unique, little personality. The previous one hated cheese but as you can see, H3 is a more traditional rodent.

Brother, Can You Hear Me?

Let's get a bit techie today: Streaming audio over the Internet is not new. I still have several, half-hour programs I converted from dusty, old audio tape to Real Audio format eight years ago! [Editor: These are in mp3 format now.] Information on the Higher Colleges of Technology BBS was discussed on Dubai FM and remains online to this day. Yet now, what's amazing to me is how increasing high-speed connections are providing extremely high-quality streaming nowadays.

If you use MS Windows media, just go to the radio tuner tab and in the search box type 100K. There are a couple of pages of entries which should be available at near CD quality. Years ago, I thought this type of bandwidth use was just too precious for audio. [Editor: Therefore the original encoding is very poor by today's standards.]

Horseshoe Bay, BC

Now, I'm really convinced that blogs are a fantastic way to initiate communication.

I just got an email from a Mr. Gaurav Pahwa. He is in India and said he was looking at this blog. He appreciated the pictures and asked for more. So, here's another picture from when my sister was here last month. It is Horseshoe Bay, BC. There are provincial government ferries which leave from this area and travel across to Vancouver Island. Write again when you have a chance, Gaurav.

Dear Martha,

Thanks for stopping in town yesterday. I think it was a smart move for you to switch from Zellers to Sears Canada. I also feel that you should be receiving a medal rather than a subpoena and court date. You get more of my respect than many government officials; after all, you have created an empire through your own efforts.

==Dennis

P.S. I drink a lot of wine and I'm very happy with the quality of your corkscrew. In addition, I hope you've forgiven Cybill Shepherd.

Finally, we're having rain, today!

Werewolves

I got a message from Michael Ansart the other day about the death of singer/songwriter Warren Zevon. You see during my college days, a group of three ran an arcade in our small town in New Hampshire. The Harbor Gameroom was a hangout for not only summer visitors but also for the local youth in our tourist town of Sunapee. In that arcade, there was a jukebox that burned the favorite tunes of those times into our brains. During the summer of 1978, one of those songs was Zevon’s Werewolves of London.

Here’s a recent email exchange:

Michael Ansart: For some reason as soon as I heard the news, I felt the pain from old bruises sustained in a cardboard "pizza disk” fight at the gameroom.

Dennis Hurd: Thanks for the news. Okay, Bret ... what was the number on the jukebox?

Bret Wirta: All this ol' brain remembers is N4. Was that Main Street? Love is Like Oxygen?

Mark Wirta: Why couldn't it have been the Heart sisters instead. Would have given me some measure of satisfaction for having to listen to Barracuda every time that Bungay kid had an extra quarter.

Dennis Hurd: You mean the jukebox used quarters? I remember just opening a little door, reaching inside, and hitting ...

Michael Ansart: Years ago I saw Warren Zevon in a small club, I went in just liking his music, but came away with a bit of admiration for the man. He was three songs into his first set, when this loud group of approx. 8 entered the club and made a big deal with the club staff. Essentially demanding that they set a table up for them near the front of the stage. The club staff, trying to avoid a scene complied. Between songs, the loud and most obnoxious of the 8 repeatedly tried to talk with Zevon. Right in the middle of one song, Zevon simply stopped playing and turned to the audience and said, “Did you ever notice how the f#$*ing a*^holes who are up front at a show, are the ones who care least about the music?” Then he announced to a semi-stunned crowd, “I’m not going to continue until this table is empty” Then to wild applause, the club staff escorted the table of 8 to the door. Ever since that night, I always enjoyed listening to Zevon a little more.

From Across the River

I looked at yesterday's entry and noticed that the picture gave a limited view of downtown. This is the older part of New Westminster having reached its zenith during the 50's. Since then, uptown has seen most of the development. Most shopping moved to the malls at the top of the hill. It's quite a hill too; people need to walk bicycles (and Dennis always drives).

I thought perhaps I could show the eastern part of downtown better if I included a picture from the other side of the river. It was taken from a small park which is directly across from our buildings.

I even put in an arrow to show my window:


In other news, yesterday on the phone, Jay said that his mom's condition is worsening.

Afternoon on the Balcony

Laurie, you should recognize this scene. Doesn't it seem a long time ago that you were visiting?

This apartment is on the tenth floor overlooking the Fraser River in New Westminster. There is still some industry up river, so barges with logs and working tugs regularly pass by. The apartment faces south, but for this picture, I was looking downriver. Can you see the riverboat casino that's parked at the Quay? Behind that, you should be able to see the Alex Fraser Bridge. The river splits into a north and south branch almost within view. The Fraser's waters enter the Strait of Georgia about 18 kilometers from here.

I took the picture just seconds ago:

It's Monday but I don't have to run off to work. I taught a course this summer and am taking leave until November. Then, I will teach a special, intense course that will finish just before Christmas.

The new TV-season begins tonight. There’s a lot of buzz about Nip/Tuck.

I consider the satellite PVR as the best purchase made last year. It's a satellite receiver with built in hard disk. Programs are taped as files. The clarity is exactly the same as the original broadcast. There's a three day schedule for all channels and in order to set it up for recording, one just highlights the selection. It has entirely changed the way I do television.

1) There are always 10 or 20 hours of programming available.
2) I never watch something just 'cause it's on.
3) I can time shift by picking programs on an earlier eastern Canadian feed.
4) Lastly, there's a fast commercial skip.

Did you know that an hour program is really only 44 minutes? Think how much more TV watching I can pack into an evening!

There was rain [link removed] last night! It's probably strange to be so happy about it in Vancouver but we need more to end the drought.

He's Got Mail (But Seldom Answers)

Sally, I'm answering your message via the blog. (I am doing this as I especially want you to look at the previous entry!) Daragh, the scoundrel, did visit here once. Yet we seldom are able to get him by email even though SF is not THAT far away.

He was thinking about investing in property in Vancouver, but he must've found something else to put his money in. That's a shame as he really should put his extra cash here. The 2010 Winter Olympics should raise the value of property ...

Has it been 7 years?

Thanks Dennis. We still talk about you whenever we refer to leaders and people who were willing to take a risk. Hope you are well.

Norm

Dennis Hurd wrote:

> This message was submitted through the Dubai Men's College web site ...
>
> Addressee: norman.gray@hct.ac.ae
> Submitter: Dennis Hurd
> Subject: Heart-felt Congratulations!
>
> ** Please forward this information to Norm Gray.** It now seems seldom that I visit the DBM (DMC?) website. However, I did see the recent honor that you have attained. Naming the Engineering Bldg for you is a very suitable reward for your sustained efforts there.
>
> I shall always consider you one of the best 'bosses' that I will ever have the opportunity to work with.
>
> Best wishes always,
> Dennis Hurd

Lights, Camera, Action!

Tim is here doing some video editing. He's making a tape for his mom and sister in MN. He is switching from a camcorder tape to VHS. It's pretty obvious that he wandered around Vancouver for hours. He actually strapped the camera to his body on a bike trip to work at UBC from the West End. What a documentary it will be!

Caffeinated PC

My computer seems the same -- only faster. (Intel Pentium 4 2.4 800 MHz FSB) I kept the same hard disks so there was no discomfort nor need for re-installation. Windows XP thought it was being stolen as it tried to wake up in the new system. Yet, I had no trouble calling MS for a new activation code. The system used voice recognition: "If you wish to continue say, "yes". YES.

Jay called to tell me that things were much the same. They've had a couple of doctors stop to provide his mom with the best care possible.

Notes to Myself & Others

Yikes! I'm writing this entry from the New Westminster Library at the moment, as I have no computer at home. On a whim, I called my computer shop to ask about an upgrade. My tired, 5-year-old box is now sitting on Kingsway waiting for new 'guts'. The machine served me well ... we'd spent a lot of quality time together.

The case will remain the same but a new power supply, CPU, motherboard, and RAM should keep me going for another five years. I remember a time when every 18 months one had to throw out the whole deal. I'm glad those were the days that I had plenty of unspent, oil-generated salary cheques from the Gulf. With perpetual upgrading, we'll always have an upgrade waiting.

This evening, I shall pick up the beast with a new soul.

Tim, call me .. or hit REPLY to one of my many email messages!!!

Laurie, if your modem is quick enough you can see a video of the Vancouver Aquarium. The day after you left I got my missing card from them in the mail.

Wild Fires

Bret and Joel, I know you're keen on old railroad biking. The fires here in BC are now destroying historic trestle bridges in the Okanagan.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

I have a little Olympus D-40 digital camera and took this photograph near Lillooet, BC. I'm working to make collections of scenery shots that I like. I've uploaded a number of them to a site called Webshots. As well as view, visitors to the site can see a slideshow or use a particular photo as an e-post card. (Of course as a guest to that site you can choose to view at 1024X768 and make my vista your new Windows wallpaper.) There are many examples of BC shots in this set.

Let's Make a Deal

I just wanted to pick up a handful of things but knowing that the prices are cheaper there, I drove to Coquiltlam's "Great Canadian Superstore". Traffic jams began before 3 pm today. Why is that? Doesn't anyone work during the afternoons anymore? The five kilometre trip seemed like fifty. I sat and waited at the Braid Street traffic lights long enough to see that gas was 89.5 cents a litre.

At last, I parked in the twenty-acre parking lot, got an oversized cart, and pushed it around three acres of building. Sprinters could train for the Olympics just by running up the dog-food aisle. Old ladies get lost and have to ask for directions. There's enough toilet paper sitting on the shelves to hang on every bathroom wall between here and Saskatoon.

All items on list -- in cart: yes. Now, it was time to roll up to the check out. Why are there 24 registers when there are always only six cashiers on duty? I had 13 items and didn't feel as though I should bother the frantic-eyed customers in the 12-item, express lanes. A massive lady in front of me was obviously down from New Hazleton stocking up on a year's supply of food for the whole town. Oh, perhaps there was a more obvious reason why she was a massive lady. Eventually, I swiped Interac and said something nice to the frazzled, little girl at the register. Then it was back out on the road to New Westminster. At least I was going opposite the flow now.

I probably saved 63 cents over walking to the corner store.

Weather Continued

It's going to be another day with no rain. I guess this is the biggest drought in 50 years. We've scarcely had rain at all this summer. Wild fires have consumed homes in BC, but on the other side of the mountains. The reservoirs are only 40% full. Consequently the GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District) is on water restrictions. They can call some of us water hogs [link abandoned] as residents often over-water their lawns and gardens. One advantage of high-rise living is my yard is watered and MOWED by the caretaker.

If I buy vegetables this morning, I can stop up at the library. What time do they open? New Westminster Public Library.

www.blogger.com

There are three or four companies which can help you set up a blog. I installed the new Google Bar and found the 'BlogThis!' button. So, this blog is modified at www.blogger.com. You might find it fun to go to their web site even if you don't want to set up a free blog. On the left-hand top of the screen there is a list of FRESH BLOGS. These are the ones published during that minute. Refresh the page and the list will change. It's interesting to see how different blogs can be, so here are some samples ---

Two sisters' dieting blog:
Ass Be Gone

A PoliSci instructor's required readings blog:
Ben Muse

A blog about the academics of blogging:
so this is mass communication?

So happy about going back to school blogs:
The young and the restless..
just another day in suburbia

One person's comments and news blog:
Virtual Feng Shui

Phone Call to Sri Lanka

At one point, we had intended to fly to Europe today for a long vacation. Those plans were put on hold when Jay returned to Sri Lanka to help take care of his dying mother. I telephoned there this morning for an update and the woman's condition is slightly worse. She has no chance of recovery, but of course, they wish to keep her as comfortable as possible. His mother is not conscious but her heart keeps beating. It's good that Jay had the chance to go to help his dad, sisters, and brother.

Jay has scheduled his ticket to come back on September 15th. Of course the situation could change at any moment.

Gutenberg and a Blog

I am slipping. I remember explaining how to install 2400 bps modems. In the early 90's in the UAE, I ran a Major BBS/Worldgroup system with a couple of Galiticiboards (12-port serial boards) on an old 386. I've been playing with HTML documents for six or seven years. I've recently gotten around to formatting with MS FrontPage (example) rather than editing with NotePad!

I've got to admit, though, I've been slow on the uptake with the concept of blogs. Mine'll only be a simple e-journal for friends; however, I see the emergence of an extremely unique way of organizing data. Surely, there will be a lot of silly carping about why an adolescent feels life is horrific. Some people will rush to 'publish' their views on politics and these may remain, for the most part, universally unread. Love of God or guns will undoubtedly be topics consuming gigabytes of data. Yet beneath this explosion of words there is an empowerment of an individual to express ideas.

I teach technical-communication skills. If the printing press was important in the rise of literacy, then the impact of blogs will eventually be felt. Web Logs are undoubtedly important and I promise myself to try to stay more attuned to such things.

See all the blog directories:

Google Directory - Computers > Internet > On the Web > Weblogs > Directories

Bret asks about T-Shirt

I do all my prints at a branch of a store that's like Fred Myer. I upload the digital files from my house and then pick 'em up from the local store. The prints are brilliant. They also do mugs and mouse pads.

www.ldphotostation.com/

I'm going to try to add stuff to my blog every day. If we ever get on the vacation, I can give a day-by-day account from any Internet cafe. (But it'll be too hard to do pictures unless I'm on my own computer.)

--Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: b.wirta
To: DennisSylvesterHurd
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 4:04 PM
Subject: Sent Via the Blog

Cool site. How did you do the tee-shirt?

Chatting ...

Running MS Messenger .. chatted with Candy (Winn) Fuller in VT. She said her class has 11 students this year! Teaching is better than in days when I went to school with 35 clasmates, huh? Candy's poor computer is a complete mess after a few virus attacks.

Digital Pics on Cloth!

Yup, digital cameras are the BEST ... the photo t-shirt (see first entry of the day) came out great. After getting it sweaty by wearing it for the photo, I sent it off at the post office.

And ...

Just completed a few changes at:

The Virtual Sunapee Reunion

Spent a bit of the morning helping set up a blog with a former colleague in Bahrain, DON RICHARDSON. Thankfully talking for two hours was free due to MS Messenger.

Laurie's Visit of Last Week

Let's start the day with a photo:



My sister came to visit from Aug. 20 to 27. It was the first time she'd been out to Vancouver (and I've been here seven years). It is always fun being a tourist in your own city again. This area rocks! (The average blogger is probably under 27 and I want to sound like that too.) The picture above is in Stanley Park and the obligatory shot in front of the totem poles. Actually, we're printing this up on a t-shirt to send to my father. Will it be done and mailed to NH before September 18th?

Blog Learning Begins

Help. HELP. Could be addicting. Let's see.

Damn .. I might even start a diary.

This could be a very convenient way to letting friends know about things they might want to check. I could post news and add web sites that I like.

This deal was started on Labour Day 2003.